I don’t write to be famous, I don’t write to be known, I write because I am and I want to be read. How sad to fill a room with paintings no one sees or play music no one hears. Writing is talking without sound, singing without score and dancing without movement and yet, it is all of them. It is a solitary art conjured from thought and expressed by the need to communicate.

HEAD SLAPS, SPEED BUMPS and LIGHTBULBS, one woman's WTF, oops and ah-ha moments of life.

They were published once, and as every writer knows, once is not enough.

Thursday, September 13, 2018

I’m tooling along finishing my
WIP, with only a few thousand words left to go, and in the back of my mind the
reason why two characters pretty much can’t stand each other eluded me. That there was an issue kept bumping into
my thoughts like a golf
ball rolling around in a bowl.

why…Why…WHY?

Then, a few days ago I’m writing
a sentence and

boom…Boom…BOOM !!!

There it was spilling out onto
the page like water down a slide into the deep end. It's a stunner.

Wow…Wow…WOW !!!

(Okay so enough of the three word fancy reactives.)

Anyway:

The result is that I have had to
go back and plant seeds (hints) that are restrained enough, so as not to be
obvious, until the reader discovers the surprise.

This throws a bag of shiny new Titleists
into the bowl because now I have to make sure I keep the readers engaged enough
to get to the heart breaking and mind blowing surprise. Wait a minute I was supposed to be doing that already wasn't I.

Saturday, September 1, 2018

In
the middle of the day I see them in the super market, gray hair, or no hair, pushing
a carriage with a grandchild in the seat. Or maybe there is no child and dinner
and a snack in the seat portends of the rest of the day’s repast.

When
I see a shopper bent over and leaning on the cart for support I wonder, do they really need the cart to hold them up
and help them on their way, or have they always shopped that way. And, why do I
analyze how they shop the way they do? Is my life so boring? Am I hyper-critical
because I see myself that way years from now, months, next week or tomorrow?

I
am not a leaner. I straighten up, walk tall and fast because I do not consider
myself one of them yet. Yes, I may shop in the middle of the day, and yes, there
is often a grandchild in the seat, and sometimes a second one walking along
side me, or perched on the front of the cart like a hood ornament. Yup, I am
one of them.

When
we eloped, almost forty years ago, I loved being considered a member of the
married club. Once we had children I relished being a card (and baby) carrying
parent club member. Defined as, parent of a “toddler”, “teenager”, “college
student”, and eventually “mother of the bride”, enrolled me in all the other
clubs I’ve struggled through and thoroughly loved. The most recent, and
cherished beyond words and feelings, is being a grandparent. It is much more than other grandparents have described to me.

Until
our first grandbaby was born I only saw the generational gap, from the other
side as a grandchild. My Nanas’ let me have ice cream when my mom said “no.”
They told me I was beautiful even though I knew I was awkward and chubby. They
told me I was smart when I felt stupid and didn’t have a clue what I was smart
at.

My grandparents,
(grandmothers in particular), filled in all the gaps my parents left open because
mom and dad both worked and I was not an only child. It wasn’t until I became an
adult, and my grandparents were gone, that I realized the importance of that
generation’s existence in my life and how it influenced the person I have
become today.

I am them.

The roll they
played is now my roll.

Like them (for
now anyway) I do not use anything to hold myself up. I’m a straight walker, straight
talker and dish out platters of life lessons for the little ones to consume or
discard.Along with the time I am now
blessed to have with them, to sometimes do nothing but sit and eat ice cream, I
tell them how beautiful, handsome and smart they are. “Yes”, to another little toy,
another cupcake, another movie and another handful of popcorn, even though mom
and dad say “nope”, you’ve had enough. As best I can, I am filling in the gaps
with more than just enough.

And what does this
have to do with writing? Nothing and
everything.

Evelyn Wilkerson
never had children, and yet, as a gray haired mid-sixties relic of the good
life unexpectedly tossed onto the bottom rung, she fills in the gaps.

They say to write what you know about. I
am not a leaner and neither is Evelyn.

Times Two

My column 'Enough Said' is in 8 ‘Times’ newspapers, a division of The Day in New London, Connecticut. I weekly pitch myself as the writing love-child of Andy Rooney and Erma Bombeck. Not as acerbic as Andy and a bit more modern than Erma, I admire them as winking-paragons of realistic observation. Enoughsaidcolumn.blogspot.com is my tilt on things. Carolynnwith2Ns is my tilt on everything else. Email me at Cpianta@comcast.net
or CP.enoughsaid@aol.com